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Shelby jumps in front of her friend. "NO! No I don't! Totally no contact whatsoever!" Whatever reason Pixl thinks contacting the Witch's Academy is good for, it's not good enough for her. "But uh... just out of curiosity, why should we be contacting someone?"
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"Well," Pix starts, shuffling the many books and papers bundled in his arms. Shelby quickly places a table of wood planks over the mud, upon which Pix hefts the academic mass onto with a heavy thump. Shaking the strain out of his arms, he carefully begins organizing them, setting most of the articles to the side. What remains in the center is a maroon colored tome, not especially thick but fitted with large pages. Imprinted on its cover, the words "Art of the Pre-Ruinous and Ruinous Eras: a Documentation of Historical Works."
"Shelby I’m not sure how much you know about the Old Continent’s empires. Where the northern region of the Seareach Peninsula is now, on it's western coast. That is where the Codlands once was.”
“A kingdom built into the swamps and salt marshes, home to slime farmers and fishermen. Curiously, the majority of its citizens were not human, but are referred as cod in most documentation. There is evidence of massive aqueducts throughout the Codland’s capital through which aquatic life theoretically could traverse the city. It brings the question though, why would cod desire to build a governed kingdom, on land no less? And how could they have constructed it?”
“The answer, as hypothesized today, is that there was some kind of influence that drew the cod to that area. An offspring of an ancient leviathan, said to have walked out from the tide and built a kingdom upon the marshes. So if my suspicions are correct..." Shelby follows his gaze upwards, from the book's art onto Jimmy's pale face.
"Codfather, Emperor of the Codlands, one of 12 Emperors of the Old Continent. That's you, right?”
The two of them stare at Jimmy, who opens and closes his mouth like a, well... like a fish.
"N- no."
"No?" Pix challenges. "But-"
“No I’m not, right?" He shrinks in on himself, no longer meeting their eyes. "The Codlands doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t steward the land, I've lost my connection to it. So no, I'm not an Emperor.”
The air goes quiet. Even without knowing what kingdoms made up the old empire, she of course knows how they fell. She knows about The Rapture. A miles-wide nuclear explosion at the heart of the continent, the kingdom it was detonated in leveled to the ground in seconds. Outwards the shock wave spread, shattering the earth in all directions. The ground gave way to chasms, molten rock erupted from the core, and the rivers and ocean receded. Crops burnt, buildings toppled, the sky was blotted in ash, and the Kingdoms of the Old Continent, only having started to recover from blight, fell one by one to pestilence and ruin.
She knows about The Rapture, everyone does. Even those who didn't pay attention in history class usually tuned in for this chapter. If not for the destruction, then for how it started. Following the imprisonment of a demonic threat to all the land, a ceasefire between two warring nations is cautiously left instated. One nation is a center of industry, powered by smoke and redstone and led by a genius inventor. The other a small seaside kingdom, their leader a punching bag with little power over the fate of his nation. The underdog leader meets in his enemy's capital, hoping to establish peace after decades of war. The inventor agrees, enthusiastic to stop the fighting. After much discussion and debate, the two are seemingly ready to finalize the decision. In an act of trust, the inventor leads the underdog into the heart of his city, where an impossible reactor pulses with the energy to power the whole of the nation. The doors close behind the two and... only minutes pass before it all ends.
She knows about The Rapture. Twelve whole nations brought to ruin, all because of the cowardly Seaside King who wanted just once to be the sole arbiter of fate.
Wait a minute.
Shelby takes a step back, the tension making it feel like she's walking on a wire. There's no way, right? She didn't just have tea with the man who caused the apocalypse? Pix watches her connect the dots in her head and follows her suit, stepping away from the fish man.
"No, you're not an emperor anymore. None of your fellow emperors were in power for long after that day. The Rapture ended your era in minutes. The Old Continent was devastated. And before us, Shelby, is the very man who pushed the button."
She watches Pix take another step back, eyes focused on The Codfather. His left hand slowly reaches behind his back, hiding a splash potion being pulled from his inventory. His right hand at his side, but readied to reach for the sword in his inventory. Oh no. She turns back to Jimmy. He's bristling, shoulders heaving with heavy breaths. Oh no. This just got very dangerous, didn't it. Pix is speaking to her in a low voice now, and she can hear the fear he'd been suppressing.
"Get ready to cast something or run."
Shelby tries to think of what she could do, what she should do. Things were moving too fast. Her stomach starts to go sour. Pix has quickly raises his voice again, shouting now. "Why did you do it? Why did you destroy all you had, just for the chance to feel power beyond your fellow rulers?”
In a split second, a lot of things happen. The Codfather, now shaking, makes a sudden move towards them. Pix launches the fizzing potion and jumps back, preparing for the worst. And Shelby, in a moment of pure stress, pulls out her wand and casts the first spell she can think of. Two bubbles, shimmering iridescent, form around both The Codfather and her and Pix. The thin glass of the potion shatters against the opposing bubble's outer edge, dull purple vapors dissipating harmlessly. The two stop and stare at Jimmy, who'd fallen forward on his knees. It takes a second for them to realize. He's crying.
Shelby dissipates the spell. She takes a step forwards, despite Pix's nervous stare. One more step, then another, until she is crouched before the Ancient Cod King, tears making soft plaps upon the mud. He doesn't take notice, wide eyes staring at the dead air in front of him. His breaths are quick and shallow, with each one making his chest shudder. Oh no, this is bad for different reasons now. Quietly, cautiously, she starts talking.
"Hey Jimmy? This is Shelby, your friend. I need you to take a deep breath in, okay? Just one long breath"
It takes a moment, and she isn't sure Jimmy heard her at first, but the short shallow breaths are eventually replaced by a single, clumsy inhale.
"Good. Now try and breath out, slow and steady."
The exhale is wheezed out, snotty and gross. But calmer. They go through the exercise a few more times. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale, until the steady breaths no longer need instruction. Jimmy is still crying but his eyes have focused again, now looking at the ground beneath him. Shelby is suddenly aware of the freezing-cold mud soaking through the knees of her overalls. Jimmy gives a shaky breath.
"...I- I can't remember. Which one of us pressed that button? I didn't- I... neither of us wanted what..." His arms wrap around his head. "We thought we had really reached peace. That we were all headed for an age of prosperity.... that's all I wanted."
The two of them sit in silence, save for the soft pitter of tears and the buzzing of mayflies deeper in the swamp. There's a squelch of mud behind them as Pix walks over, a water bottle and towel in his hands. Jimmy takes the towel, tissue sized in his hand, and starts to wipe his face. Pix, unsure how to start, kneels into the mud as well.
"I'm... sorry how that happened. That must've been awful to live through. I... I suppose history isn't fair to those not there to write it."
He stops there. History remembering Jimmy as a monster isn't the issue at hand right now. Instead they let Jimmy cry as much as he needs to. Shelby thinks about it, how accidentally being involved in the ending of the world would feel. She thinks about the old ruins in the forest by her hometown, the ravines carved into the earth just outside the Witch's Academy's campus. She thinks about her blunder with her potions hut, how she had ended a tiny part of the world right there.
She thinks if she survived causing the apocalypse, she would crawl into a hole and sleep forever as well.
After a few minutes, the tears are all out of Jimmy's system. He sniffles, wiping his eyes with the towel one last time.
"M' sorry about that. I, um..."
"Hey, it's okay. You, uh, really seemed like you needed that cry, huh?" Shelby stands up, offering Jimmy her hand. He takes it, but gets up on his own since she's too short to offer leverage.
"I think... that's probably enough stress for today." Pix pulls out a shulker box, carefully packaging his books and papers now that he has ample time to. "How about we go someplace with a bit more room and a bit less mud? I'll be honest, I had Joel on stand-by in case things got too out of hand." He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "I... I seriously thought there was no possible way it could be you, but I called Joel just to calm my nerves. I didn't want the situation to get dangerous." The shulker closes with a click.
"With that aside, Stratos should be spacious and comfy enough to accommodate you until we can build you a proper house. How's that sound?"
Joel's empire was, in fact, spacious and warm and much less muddy. And while the god was at first annoyed that "back-up" meant offering a room to the potential murderous fishman he was warned about, he soon determined the situation wasn't anything worth worrying about to him.
For the first night in many, many nights, Jimmy slept in a bed instead of a hole in the ground. And though he didn't let himself dream yet, he had to admit it was a lot more comfy up here.
